Sharing the trial and error learned lessons of a MS spouse caregiver / carer about family, home care, and transition to the care facility era from 23 years of living with Multiple Sclerosis as a family ... a ‘warts and all’ picture of living with MS.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Memorial Day with a Civil War Veteran

For Memorial
Day 2012 we decided to do something different - go quest for a veteran
ancestor. Late last Fall I had played around with ancestry.com stalking dead
ancestors with clicks of a computer mouse but now it was time to get real.

Patti’s
paternal great-great grandfather, while unknown in her family oral history, still seemed
from my research our most promising quest.

George R
Decker (1833 – 1915) fought in the US Civil war with the 17th Pennsylvania Cavalry. A lifelong Pennsylvania farmer he fought through and survived three
years of Calvary engagements in most of the battles of the Eastern campaign of
the Civil War including Gettysburg.

I knew
from his Civil War Veteran’s records that he was supposed to be buried in New Freedom Cemetery and after
driving around the cemetery and then pushing and pulling Patti’s wheelchair through
the tombstones and over many deceased, eureka! we found him .. and his wife,
too.

We had brought
along a picnic basket and bottles of ice water. ‘Real feel’ temps of 94˚F (34.4˚C) were
not Multiple Sclerosis friendly but by frequently applying a frozen bottle of
ice water to the back of Patti’s neck, it worked like her personal air conditioning
… and our air conditioned wheelchair van was nearby if needed.

To our
pleasant surprise and as if conjured up by some ‘Americana’ movie set to
complete our picnic, a 'small town America' Memorial Day program was being set up
in the cemetery. People soon began to walk by us carrying folding chairs and
coolers, scouts had flags and flowers. A small local brass band began to play military songs through the years.

Still
hangin’ out with George and Lydia, soon we found ourselves laughing and singing
along to snippets from songs such as “It’s a Grand Old Flag”.

As the
band finished their tribute to the Civil War including both Battle Hymn of the
Republic and Dixie it was a perfect time for us to say goodbye.

What more
can you say to a guy who had actually been at Appomattox Courthouse when the
Civil War ended … except thank you.

5 comments:

Wow, Patrick, how neat to spend the day like this! Humbling to be in the presence (so to speak) of someone who had served the country so many years ago!! Seemed like a nice touch too with the music and other celebrating going on!

Interestingly I've since learned that Memorial Day graveyard picnics at veterans graves were once quite the norm for Memorial Day before we became a nation that cannot leave our video games, TV's, pools, parades, etc. Patti and I were the only living picnickers then again it was an OLD graveyard in an OLD farming community and the Memorial Day 'concert' in the cemetery kind of counted 'like' a picnic. :)